


Going Down

by justanotherStonyfan



Series: Hydra Trash Meme 2014 ongoing - blanket dub/non consent warnings [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Canon Typical Violence, F/M, M/M, Missing Scene, Restraints, Spoilers for the end of Captain America The Winter Soldier, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, cap 2 spoilers, winter soldier spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-07
Updated: 2014-04-07
Packaged: 2018-01-18 13:44:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,203
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1430668
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/justanotherStonyfan/pseuds/justanotherStonyfan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain America 2 Spoilers, Spoilers for Captain America The Winter Soldier. I'm putting the summary in the notes for a month or two, to avoid spoilers. But if you've seen the scene in the elevator, this is to do with that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Going Down

**Author's Note:**

> I am a bad person. But I'm also not sorry. Sort of a missing scene, sort of an AU. 
> 
> Steve gets more out of fighting with people who like to fight than he does out of jerking off in the shower. And then later, when Rumlow gets the upper hand in the elevator, Steve learns just what kind of mistake he's made.

The need for the physical manifests itself shortly before New York, when ruined heavybags aren't enough but he's not beyond cold showers. Or long, soundproofed, _warm_ showers, if he's got the time to spare.

What he does _not_ do is head out. He doesn't go trawling bars or hanging around hotels or even, as he's overheard at least one of the lower-level agents bragging about, looking sad in airports. He keeps it close to his chest, the way he does everything, turning to his men because he trusts them. He remembers how good Dumdum (good) or Gabe ( _so_ good) were to him on the rare occasions that he'd ask for what he needed, though those occasions were few and far between, because he has needs. He's young, kind of, he's pumped full of serum, and he's surrounded by the sharpest minds and fittest bodies in the country. Wanting them is background noise.

But he's no fool. There aren't going to be bunches of flower and candles and, in a way, that much is a relief. He doesn't want a relationship - he isn't ready for one, as nice as he presumes Natasha's many, _many_ acquaintances are.

Which is how he winds up against a wall with Natasha. 

It's not about sex. If it were about sex, he could walk into a room, announce his intentions and take his pick from the volunteers, which he knows is immodest but also knows is true. He kind of hates it, actually.

No, it's about adrenalin. Bloodrush. Heat in his skin and muscles, never standing still, it's about the fight. He spars with her, and she's fast and lithe, and she's gorgeous in her sweats and tank, and he doesn't want her naked, doesn't want her body, he wants to fight something. He wants to move fast and block punches and throw punches and have someone enjoy the thrill of the fight with him. 

So, at two o'clock in the morning one morning, he ends up sparring with Natasha. They begin on the mats, ducking and weaving around gym equipment, her using his strength, him using her speed and, by the time he lifts her and pins her to a wall, he's hard against her thigh, sweating enough that his hair is stuck to his head, and he doesn't even blush, he's not even sorry. He's not looking to screw her and she's not looking to let him, and if it's weird that he prefers the entrée to the main course, she doesn't call him on it.

Where he thought it would be awkward, it's not at all. It's easy, it feels good, it's just what he wants and she's light as a feather. He lifts her easily and they never even kiss – he's not pining for her, she's not pining for him, they just both need the thrill of the fight, but the sound of her, the feel of her, the smell of her hair and the slide of her skin on his is enough to keep the howling wolves at bay in his chest, enough to stop him yanking at his invisible chains and snapping at his invisible bars.

It's enough, and he lets her down, steps away. She doesn't call him on the fact that his sweats hide nothing, and he doesn't talk about how hard her nipples are through her shirt, or the fact that she was hugging his hips with her knees not twenty seconds ago while they breathed each others' air.

“Good fight,” she says, and he nods with a grin, swiping the back of his hand over the lower half of his face to brush away the sweat there. It's kind of a semi-regular thing after that.

Rollins isn't really Steve's style – he's a little too cold, a little too disbelieving, a little too rough around the edges. Which are all great reasons but, really, Steve's not sure how far he can push Rollins.

But Rumlow, well...Rumlow never seems surprised to see Steve, never seems concerned by him. There's a respect between them that Steve admires and, while he wouldn't seek Rumlow out, he wouldn't turn him down.

When he and Rumlow start sparring, it's to train. Rumlow's been tac-team for as long as anyone can remember and he's the obvious choice when it comes to Steve keeping his skill-level up.

Rumlow is a little easier to get a read on. 

They start out sparring, running ops together and, when Steve's sure he can trust Rumlow, when Rumlow's shown he has Steve's back on too many occasions to count, Steve invites him to spar on one of the lower levels, late at night, when the chances of anyone interrupting are low.

Now, maybe it's his 1940s sensibilities, but Steve really likes the look-but-don't-touch. Loves the thrill of the chase, the heightened adrenalin. He doesn't need a payoff. And DADT might have been repealed but he's never sure about SHIELD's policies on this kind of thing, with the same sex or not, so he doesn't ask. He doesn't tell.

He just spends a little longer sparring with Rumlow than is strictly necessary, spends a little longer in the communal showers with him afterward, moves a little more slowly than he has to when he's washing away the sweat, holds Rumlow's gaze when Rumlow 'catches' him staring under the spray.

Rumlow's got a hell of a build, nice skin and dark hair, reminds him of Stark a little but without the flash. Rumlow's got both feet on the ground, and he's all muscle, and a grin that always looks like he's keeping a secret.

So when Rumlow catches Steve staring, because Steve wanted to be caught, Rumlow smiles, makes some comment about going to his quarters, and looks a little put-out when Steve says that's not what he wants. “But the sparring,” he says instead, “ _that_ I can do.”

Rumlow smiles. “Yeah you can, Big Guy,” he says. “With one hand tied.”

So they spar regularly. They spar and they shower, and they throw each other around until they're covered in bruises, until Rumlow washes Steve's shoulder under the pretense of checking one of those bruises. Steve likes walking away from a spar hard, likes leaving the shower half-hard, likes spending an hour and a half with someone else's hands on him, rolling around on the floor, throwing punches and taking punches and sometimes not even jerking off afterwards. The burn is good, the ache is good, riding the edge of what he wants is great, and the likelihood is that it's unhealthy.

This is probably some repressed projection or some psychological whatever, Steve doesn't care about the terminology and doesn't care what's making him do it. Whatever's giving him so much of a rush out of fighting one of the good guys and walking away with his blood on fire, it's doing exactly the same thing to Natasha, to Rumlow. Rumlow's stronger that Natasha is, isn't afraid to drop him harder.

They go further some nights than they do on others – Rumlow packs one hell of a punch. Sometimes they hit until they bleed, lie on the mats until they catch their breath, and leave. Sometimes Rumlow lands a fist to Steve's jaw once or twice and they call it a night. Sometimes they wind up against the wall or on the floor, with Rumlow over Steve or Steve over Rumlow, and if Rumlow's thigh gets caught high between his own for a minute or two, Steve doesn't care. It's a tease. At best, it's foreplay, but it's foreplay with a fight involved, foreplay without the need for any follow-up, and that gets Steve's blood pumping like nothing else – and Rumlow's too.

Steve's still, technically, a virgin and he's probably a terrible kisser given that he doesn't kiss, but there isn't anything like this, like letting someone else work you up until the fight and the fire is all you are. Steve thinks maybe he, and Nat, and Rumlow could do this kind of thing forever.

Until Fury dies.

When it happens, Rumlow has killed a man to save Steve less than a week before. Rumlow's been cracking jokes, and sparring with him, and debriefing with him and the team, and then he's in on Steve's Algerian Pirates op and saves Steve's life. 

But Fury dies. And then suddenly, Rumlow isn't as patient or as friendly, and Steve gets it. At least, Steve _thinks_ he gets it – Fury's gone, Fury's been snatched away from them, and everyone's upset, everyone's on edge.

Except that turns out not to be it at all. 

Pierce - _Alexander Pierce_ \- calls him in and _threatens_ him, and Steve doesn't think much of that because he can understand the threat. For a while, he feels that way himself, but something's wrong, something _feels_ wrong. It isn't lying to a superior officer, as much as he should feel bad about it. No, it's that Nat said he's a terrible liar, and Pierce will probably figure out that he's hiding something.

Still, he doesn't foresee it as a much of an immediate problem.

Rumlow gets onto the elevator, side-steps him with a generic question about forensics and Steve knows him well enough to read his face, to know something's up, to know that keeping his hand on his weapon is a bad sign. He can't tell what the problem is, though it sets him on edge immediately. 

Someone gets between his back and the wall the next time the elevator stops, and that's when Steve _knows_ something's going on. But he doesn't really register that he's in trouble himself until Rollins gets on with them. And then Steve's standing in the middle of a packed elevator with Rollins right in front of him and Rumlow even closer than that.

And that'd when he knows that, for all the hours they've spent in the gym, all the time they've spent gasping and grappling, all the time they've spent exchanging long, blatantly appreciative looks in the shower, it's only now that Steve's screwed.

He's not sure what makes him speak – maybe he thinks Rumlow's still on his side, maybe he's trying to give Rumlow a chance to back off. But it's Rollins who moves first, weapon in hand. 

Steve doesn't know what those things are called and he barely tries to remember as Rollins thrusts it towards him – stun baton, Steve heard it called once, in some science fiction thing. But one zap to his forehead or his heart and he's had it – you don't screw around with electricity and vital organs, not if you want to live. Or at least, live any kind of life.

He deflects, knocks it clean out of Rollins' hand and tries to force him out of the way but there are ten other men in here with him – Rumlow and two more of his strike team, then four suits, then Rollins and two of his men – and one of the bigger ones, the Big Man, one of Rollins' men, has him by the throat from behind even as he tries to use his own weight, his own strength, to throw them off.

He kicks out, pushes back, but someone hits the emergency stop and pain flares in his stomach - _baton_ \- and the Big Man has him fast. One of the suits drops a briefcase to snap cold metal around Steve's wrist, and then there are _four_ hands forcing his wrist up.

It doesn't make sense until he feels his arm shift backwards by itself - _magnets_ and he's in one hell of a lot trouble because those are _strong,_ he can feel the ache of pulling against them in his _bones._

Most of the men are still on the floor, where Steve _kicked_ them although, with an arm around his throat and more men than he can count any more trying to push his hand back, it's one hell of a struggle to pull it back but somehow, somehow he does – one foot out to catch one of the not-suits (Rumlow's? Rollins'?) in the knee and take him down.

He punches another, knocks a suit flying and the satisfying _clang_ of the second cuff – that's _not,_ around his wrist – spurs him on. He takes out another suit with a well-aimed kick, a hand to Rollins' throat takes him down, and an elbow to another not-suit gives him enough freedom to smash his skull back into the Big Man's face. He swings him over his shoulder and into the glass wall of the elevator a moment later, and then he dodges Rumlow's - _Rumlow's_ kick.

That's where he makes his first mistake.

The pull of the magnet's too strong, and he's too distracted by Rumlow – by _Rumlow!_ \- to stop his hand swinging back, to stop the magnet going where it always meant to go, and securing his wrist to the only piece of metal in the damned place that will leave him vulnerable.

_”With one hand tied.”_

He pulls at it for maybe half a second before he knows Rumlow sees an in, before Rumlow comes for him and he blocks, dodges, before fire screams through his back, the baton in Rumlow's hand pressed tight to his shoulder blade, and it _hurts_ , this could _kill_ a weaker man.

Another not-suit goes for him and damn, they just keep getting up, but it gives him enough movement, distracts Rumlow enough that Steve can force him back, elbow Rumlow into the corner, and the next not-suit proves more helpful than not – Steve redirects the fizzling baton that's aimed at his chest and shoves it into another not-suit who's struggled to his feet – he judders hard and Steve thinks maybe that'll kill him. 

He can't bring himself to care.

But it doesn't work, and he shoves the baton-wielder back, pulls himself up with all his weight on the cuff as he jumps, kicks out with both feet and takes the last two standing not-suits down so hard they'll stay down for a while, and then he puts both feet on the wall and pulls against the cuff, glad of his free hand and his full weight or he'd never do it, and falls backwards into a flip, the way Natasha taught him.

There's a suit still by him when he elbows another damned not-suit, no idea which one that is by now, and he can't keep track of who's who any more. He only knows that it's Rumlow who end up being last man standing, rising slowly with a baton in each hand, and Steve's getting tired, his head is buzzing, it's hot in here and he wants his hands around Rumlow's neck to finish this.

“Whoa, Big Guy,” he says, and Steve's shoulder drop, his rage boiling to the forefront of his mind, half ready to kill him just for calling him that. This is nothing but circling, waiting to fight, catching their breath before they attack and Steve wants it done, wants it over, wants to put Rumlow _down_.“I just want you to know, Cap; this isn't _personal_ -”

Rumlow lunges and Steve dodges, grabs his other swinging hand and then-

 _PAIN_ and he can't move, it locks him up for a second or three, until he can knock Rumlow's hand back, but he misses on his next punch, catches Rumlow's same hand and falls for the same trick twice, Rumlow's baton to his stomach so loud in his ears that it's screaming, and Rumlow's _enjoying_ this.

He shoves Rumlow back against the elevator doors, aims for a kick but Rumlow twists, kicks his leg out to block Steve's foot and then Rumlow's swinging again – a third time, Steve's got no choice but to catch his hand but _this_ time, Rumlow punches him in the face instead of going for his stomach.

It's a stupid second mistake, but Steve makes it, trying to block his stomach only to walk right into Rumlow's fist, and the drag on his arm makes him remember too late as he staggers backwards, cuff clanging against the wall with a noise that rings in Steve's ears. 

Rumlow's out of breath, they both are, but everybody else in this elevator's staying down.

It's just the two of them and Rumlow looks pleased with himself.

“Thing about these,” he says, gasping, “is you gotta know how to handle them.”

Steve's bent over his stomach, the pain still lingering there, and his third mistake is that he doesn't look up in time to find out how Rumlow gets the second cuff off the wall. He only realizes when it closes around his wrist, and another punch to his face makes him reel enough that Rumlow gets the upper hand.

He feels the pull and hears the clang before he really understands it, before the ringing in his ears recedes enough to let him _see_ straight, and then he's standing against the wall of the elevator with both hands over his head, spread-eagle where Rumlow wields a baton in each hand.

“Y'know, Cap, tac-team's on its way,” Rumlow says, a little more calmly now, taking a step back and shaking out, and Steve knows that movement well – he's gearing up, and there's nothing Steve can do about it. 

Rumlow's got all the time he needs now.

“It's kind of sad, actually,” Rumlow tells him, dropping one baton to step up to him, and Steve could kick him, could take him down but where would he be then? He needs out of the cuffs and he's got no idea how they work, doesn't have the strength to free one hand without the other

And then something shifts. Steve's seen it in Rumlow more than once, but never when it's light out. Never when they're working. Never outside of the gym – there's something animalistic about it and the first thought Steve has is one he hates: he used to find that attractive.

Rumlow presses his body against the length of Steve's, though he's a little shorter than Steve is himself, and then he _breathes_ Steve in – he's done it once or twice before after a fight and Steve never found it creepy until now.

“Love the smell of a fight on you,” he says, and it's not the first time he's said it. It's the first time his saying it has disgusted Steve, though, and Steve hates himself even more for that, more again for the fact that his skin warms. 

Rumlow smiles, holding the baton up to Steve's face, stroking his damned cheek with it like he does on the mats when he thinks he's hit too hard.

“Shame we need you alive,” Rumlow says, “I could really stand to kill you.”

“What happened to this not being personal?” Steve asks, and Rumlow laughs, a warm roll of air across Steve's skin that he welcomed once, anticipated, put himself in situations so that it would happen because he wanted it.

“You never heard of negotiation, Cap?” Rumlow asks, passing the baton down Steve's throat, over his chest, worrying at the star over his heart with the end of it. “I tell you what you want to hear, you give me an opening.” And then his expression changes, a flicker of something darker, more petulant, more frightening. “Except you never gave me an _opening_ , did you?” 

Steve's stomach rolls at the implication.

Rumlow slides the baton against Steve's stomach, over his hip, down between his legs to make his point and back up again because it evidently amuses him to do so. And Steve's heard people make bad jokes like this - _is that a baton in your holster or are you just pleased to_ -

“I could do you an awful lot of damage with this, Cap,” Rumlow says, proving they're on the same track as always. “ _External_ damage from one of these things is bad enough but...y'know, I've always wondered – don't you think you _owe me_ something?”

He could scream when Rumlow slides his hands around his waist, rubs the baton against the seat of his trousers instead, so that the implication would be clear even if he weren't saying it all out loud. And it would be bad enough if this were Rumlow by himself, if this were some twisted fantasy Rumlow always entertained and just kept to himself, but it's not, it's so much worse than that. Rumlow is one of few people, one of very few people, and Steve refuses to admit to himself now that Rumlow is the only one, that Steve considered _giving_ that to, that Steve considered taking that last step or two with. 

Rumlow's a good-looking man, strong and fast and smart and capable and he's attractive, he's everything Steve wanted without any of the strings he didn't. There were times on the mats when he'd yield just to feel Rumlow, there were times he craved Rumlow like he needed air. And even though he doesn't feel that way now, he knows he did once. He knows he _wanted_ Rumlow.

“I don't owe SHIELD anything,” Steve says, deflecting, and if the cuffs are electromagnetic then he's had it. Then nothing will open them until someone else _wants_ them open.

Rumlow laughs again, replacing the baton with his hand. “I didn't say SHIELD.”

Steve clenches his jaw. 

“It's almost like you want me to,” Rumlow says. “Can you imagine if they found you like that? It's not what I want to do to you, but it'll send one hell of a better message if _that's_ how Captain America's body gets found. I wonder how long it'd take you to die like that.”

Steve tries not to picture it. He tries not to think it, tries not to think of what it could have been like if he'd taken Rumlow back to his apartment, let Rumlow take him home, locked the gym and just gone for it the last time they ended up on top of each other.

Steve says nothing – what the hell is he supposed to say to _that?_

“Go ahead, Steve,” he says, and Steve's skin starts crawling - _friends_ call him Steve. “Try and stop me.”

He twists, tries to kick out but Rumlow's been sparring with him for months, watched him take out every other bastard in this elevator. He knows exactly what Steve's trying for and the kick he aims goes wide, his follow-through punch foiled by the cuff instinct makes him forget.

Rumlow jabs the baton viciously into his stomach, just above his left hip and the scream of electricity is nothing compared to the pain.

“You should see these things on other guys, Cap,” Rumlow says. “You hit a guy in the right place with this and he'll piss himself.”

Steve bites his tongue, tries not to think of that either, though it's less horrendous that Rumlow's other suggestion – he's not fool enough to think Rumlow would choose between two courses of action when he can have both and enjoy them. Besides, he knows what Rumlow wants, and he's not going to give it. “How much do you think you can get me to give?” he says instead. “I'm trained. You won't get a thing out of interrogation, doesn't matter how much you think I know.”

Rumlow does it again, flicks the switch for a longer burst this time and it makes the breath seize in Steve's lungs, makes spots dance before his eyes, and Rumlow's _smiling_ by the time it stops, a malevolent twist to lips Steve's glad he's never made the mistake of kissing. 

He thinks, a second later, that Rumlow might make him do it anyway, but he's not that lucky. “Not _good enough_ for you, Rogers?” he says, and Steve turns his head when Rumlow presses the baton to his lips. 

Rumlow turns it back and presses harder. 

“You think anyone behind that camera's not gonna back me if I say you fought too hard? If I say I didn't have a _choice_ , you were a danger to _everyone_ , I _had_ to take you down? You think if they find you the way I want to leave you, anybody's gonna ask me why?”

Steve should have guessed as much. SHIELD swallows up disasters every day, hides entire libraries of news from the public as a way to pass the time. If Rollins and Rumlow are against him then everyone else will be too.

Alexander Pierce doesn't make idle threats.

“I-” Steve answers, and it's as far as he gets before he's got the baton shoved in his mouth, against the back of his throat – he fights not to choke on it. 

“Looks like you would have been good at it after all,” Rumlow says, and he strokes the button on the baton but doesn't press it. Steve freezes. 

One good zap like this, with the tip pressed against his spine from inside, and Steve's dead at best, paralysed more likely. 

“That's it,” Rumlow says. “Word of warning, Cap, you might wanna get that as wet as you can,” Rumlow says, and Steve does as he's told while he tries to think of a way out. 

This, of course, is what Rumlow wants. He's not the kind of guy to enjoy taking orders – there's always something about the way he does as he's told that shows as much. He's been waiting a long time to be in this position and Steve doesn't doubt he'll make the most of it, 

He swallows around it, wishes he hadn't if only for the way Rumlow quirks an eyebrow, and blows a breath out through his nose.

Steve weighs his options. If the cuffs are electromagnetic, he's got no way out. But if they're a magnet and a cuff, one solid industrial magnet that's _separate from_ electronic closures, of the kind that most of SHIELD's apparently superior tech has, then he has one way that might work. It won't be easy. And it's going to hurt.

He makes enough sound around the baton that Rumlow withdraws it.

“What was that? You were speaking with your mouth full.”

Steve coughs a little, more for effect than comfort, and aims for resigned, for reluctant. “I said 'what do you want'?”

Rumlow scoffs. “You tryin' to cut a deal?” he asks, and Steve shakes his head.

“I'm tryin' to live to see interrogation,” he says, and Rumlow looks even more gleeful.

“Not sure I can recommend that,” he says, and Steve lets his gaze turn dark.

“Gotta be better than here with you,” he says.

Rumlow's smirk disappears a split second before he drives the baton into Steve's shoulder, hard, electrcicity cramping the muscles in Steve's arm, his chest, and he's gasping when Rumlow pulls it away.

His heartbeat is loud in his ears, fast in his throat and his temples and he knows he can't live through that more than once or twice more. 

“Last chance, Cap, and then they find you stripped and skewered on this thing, and I'll enjoy every second,” and Steve really might be sick at that, but he's got one more chance.

“I asked you what you want from me,” he says. “You gonna give me a chance to give it to you?”

Rumlow nods slowly, bringing the baton up under Steve's chin, lengthways to push his head back. 

“I think _I_ get to give it to _you_ ,” he says, and he moves the baton to sink his teeth into Steve's throat.

Steve lets him, trying to figure out how he can get Rumlow's baton hand to move to where he needs it, and then Rumlow's _kissing_ him – all teeth and tongue and if Steve throws up in his mouth, Rumlow will kill him. Probably not quickly either. 

When Rumlow pulls away, he bites Steve's lip for good measure, and Steve tastes blood before he sees it on Rumlow's teeth.

Rumlow's leaning with his weight on Steve's chest, baton hand up and out of the way against Steve's arm, and his wrist is so very nearly in Steve's grasp that Rumlow's free hand sliding lower on his stomach almost doesn't register in spite of what it means – Steve can either do this now or Rumlow's got him any way he wants him.

“Wonder how much I gotta _swallow_ before I can punch as hard as you can,” Rumlow says, and Steve steels himself with a breath he's not sure will do him any good and says,

“You'll never do anything the way I can.”

It's a sore point, obviously, because Rumlow's superior smirk drops away like it did before. But Rumlow's an angry man, a spur of the moment kind of guy, someone who acts first and thinks later unless he's got orders to follow. Steve's counting on it.

Instead of moving, he presses button on the baton where it's pressed against Steve's arm, and it's like someone's tearing Steve's hand off, like someone's driving needles though his wrist. He swears he feels his heart jump, needs to take a breath but his chest won't take it, and just when the black at the edges of his vision is starting to creep inwards, just as Rumlow's vicious smile is starting to fade from his vision, Steve's whole world shifts with a little _click_ of metal.

Rumlow staggers back, his face a picture of shock before he's staring at Steve's hand.

Which is _out_ of the cuff.

_Industrial magnet _and_ an electronic closure._

And then he lunges, roaring in rage. Steve punches him in the face, grabs his hair to smack Rumlow's face against his knee, kicks Rumlow's legs out from under him and then pulls for all he's worth on the other cuff as Rumlow staggers back into the wall to pushes himself up, lunging forward again.

In the same movement that pulls it free, Steve punches, dominant hand this time, a kick to Rumlow's stomach knocking him to the ground. And then he gets both hands on Rumlow's arms to _lift_ him, forcing him upward, pouring his anger into his strength, smashing Rumlow bodily into the slatted ceiling of the elevator. 

“Kinda felt personal,” he tells Rumlow's unconscious body for posterity as he catches his breath, back and stomach and _arm_ still tingling with pain from the electricity that would have felled a lesser man.

He's not sure he can bend to pick up his shield, but he's good enough that he doesn't have to – a well placed stamp and it's back on his arm, and a well placed slice with the edge of it and he's free of the other cuff.

Now he's just got to get out of the Triskelion. And it's a long way down from here.

Later, after Lehigh, after they run, after they find everything and everything suddenly makes sense and Steve's looking at SHIELD and seeing HYDRA, he manages to make it to Sam's with Nat before he throws up. 

She's good about it – she doesn't mention that she's heard him, doesn't mention that she knows why, and if nobody ever says to Steve that he was all but screwing a HYDRA agent, that he was literally in bed with the enemy and never even knew it, it won't matter. 

Steve knows. He won't forget it. 

Neither will Rumlow.


End file.
